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Re: DHTML accessibility

for

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Jul 7, 2006 3:10AM

> One concern that I do have with the use of dynamic menus is for screen
> magnifier users. It is very easy to accidentally trigger the menu and
> cover content when using a screen magnifier (e.g. ZoomText).

I agree. Another thing to be aware of is that if the menu contains a *lot* of options,
and other nested drop downs, they can easily obscure content on the page. I have seen
lots of examples where a cull on the amount of items stuffed into the menu would have been
a great idea, as they can be very awkward/fiddly for older people and those with limited mobility.

Josh

Moore, Michael wrote:
> Debbie wrote:
>
> <blockquote>
> I had a programmer send the following. I am not familiar with DHTML. Can
> anyone advise as to how accessible it could be?
>
> I'm considering whether to use DHTML generated drop down menus for
> navigation. Are these considered "accessible"? Here's a product which
> claims to produce accessible code:
>
> http://www.udm4.com/menu/
> thanks,
> Debbie
> </blockquote>
>
> Debbie, last year I tested a couple of sites that used the UDM4 tool to
> create accessible drop down menus and I was impressed by the results.
> The menus worked fine using just the keyboard for operation and
> functioned well when using JAWS.
>
> One concern that I do have with the use of dynamic menus is for screen
> magnifier users. It is very easy to accidentally trigger the menu and
> cover content when using a screen magnifier (e.g. ZoomText). I
> recommend providing a buffer area between the edge of the content and
> the top level menu to improve things for those users. See James'
> default horizontal example
> http://www.udm4.com/demos/horizontal-absolute-top-left.php He leaves a
> good amount of blank space between the navigation items and the start of
> the content.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
>
>

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